BMC looking for a buyer

While the cloud, management software, and storage is being touted as a licence to print money, even in a recession, it seems that BMC software does not think so.

The company is looking at a potential sale and has hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch to assist with the strategic review.

Apparently, bankers for the business software maker have been wining and dining potential suitors including large technology companies and private equity firms to gauge their interest in buying all or part of the company.

BMC, which makes software for storage management, database performance and data recovery, is under pressure to sell itself from Elliott Management, a $20 billion activist hedge fund run by Paul Singer. The company is worth $6.9 billion. Elliott has control of 7.7 percent of BMC stock as of 2 August.

In July, BMC said it had reached an agreement with Elliott and would expand the size of its board to 12 directors, adding two Elliott nominees.

According to Reuters, Elliott has named IBM, Oracle, Dell and private equity firms KKR & Co LP, Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital as potential buyers.